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For the first time, a major Canadian museum is staging an exhibition devoted exclusively to the full range of art in New France. It’s a wonder that this hasn’t been done before.

Although an exhibition showcasing some art forms in Quebec before the 20th century was organized for Pope John Paul II’s visit in 1984, there has been nothing else remotely comparable to Les Arts en Nouvelle-France, which opened last August at Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec in Quebec City, and which runs until Sept. 2.

When I went to see the exhibition early last month, I was lucky to have a special tour guide — Daniel Drouin, the museum’s curator of art dating before 1850, and co-curator of Les Arts en Nouvelle-France, along with art historian Laurier Lacroix of the Université du Québec à Montréal.

New France was much larger than Quebec, as map etchings presented at the entrance to the exhibition hall make clear. Among them is Gilliaume de l’Isle’s 1703 map showing New France extending as far west as the Lake of the Woods region in Ontario, and down into the Mississippi River valley west of the American colonies. Scrawled across what is now Ontario and Quebec are the words “Canada ou Nouvelle France,” the “ou” (“or” in English) suggesting equal common use of both names at the time.

Of the 150 or so works I saw on display, Drouin went out of his way to make sure I took notice of what he called the “l’oeuvre phare” of New France — the seminal work, the most important in terms of its emblematic representation of New France — a 1666 oil-on-canvas titled La France apportant la foi aux Hurons de la Nouvelle-France.

The painting is large and perfectly square (229 cm by 229 cm, or roughly 8 ft by 8 ft) and it shows a young Huron woman kneeling on the shore of a bay at the feet of Anne d’Autriche, wife of King Louis XIII of France and mother of King Louis XIV. In the painting, we see Anne giving the Huron woman a framed work of art depicting Joseph, Mary and Jesus, and in a nod to the fact that Huron society was organized along matrilineal lines, we see Mary’s parents in it, too, Anne and Joachim. In the background we see a ship from France docked at the bay, and two small bayside chapels.

Although the painting depicts an act of giving by the French, the painting was actually a gift from the Hurons to the Jesuit order, for the new chapel in Quebec City that the Jesuits opened up in June 1666. It is attributed to an Unknown French Painter, meaning the Hurons very likely commissioned it from someone in France and paid for it in beaver pelts, according to Drouin. When the Jesuit mission in Quebec City folded in 1800 (it was revived in 1842), the painting was bequeathed to the Ursulines of Quebec, which has owned it ever since.

The original intention of the co-curators of Les Arts en Nouvelle-France was to showcase only oil paintings, both those commissioned from artists in France and those done inside New France itself (mostly after the immigration to Quebec in 1670 of Claude François, a Récollet priest and painter better known in history as Frère Luc). But a decision was made to include all art forms, and so the exhibition includes etchings, sculptures, textiles, ironworks and silverware. The exhibits are organized for display along three broad themes — representation, decoration and prayer.

I must say I was surprised how small the exhibition is. Exhibits are contained within a single room (Gallery No. 4) about a third of the size of a hockey rink. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised. New France only had a population of 70,000 at the time of the Conquest in 1759. Life was harsh in the early decades of the colony. People were preoccupied with their own survival and there were political constraints on the arts.

As France wanted New France to be a dependent colony, it prohibited ceramic work, requiring residents to import ceramics from France. It also banned ironworking until it approved the opening of the Forges du St. Mauricie in 1730.

Sculpture was never subject to a royal ban (given the complexities involved in transatlantic shipment of large or potentially fragile objects), so sculpture flourished in New France. One family, the Lavasseurs, established a commercial dynasty and some of their works are part of the exhibition. Decorative furniture was also an important medium for artistic expression. Among the pieces that I admired was a large pine armoire (1675-1725) with diamond-point patterns on it, on loan from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, which purchased it in 1937.

While La France apportant la foi aux Hurons de la Nouvelle-France is considered the masterwork of New France, Drouin showed me what is probably the single most important item with continuing functional utility.

It is the gold-and-silver chalice that King Louis XIV gave François de Montmorency, the monseigneur de Laval, after Montmorency was named first bishop of Quebec in 1658. It was a habit of French kings to give such gifts to clergy, but hardly any of it survives today because most pieces were melted down to support war efforts. So Bishop Laval’s chalice is as priceless as the Huron painting, in terms of value. And it still has practical utility, for it is still put to use on special occasions at the Basilique-cathédrale Notre-Dame de Québec, in Vieux-Quebéc.

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